Petraeus says US has momentum over Afghan Taliban

[unhappycamper]

Petraeus says US has momentum over Afghan Taliban
By Kristen Chick, Correspondent / August 23, 2010

The top commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan said Monday that Taliban momentum has been reversed in areas that had been its stronghold.

Gen. David Petraeus also said that US forces would not begin an “exodus” from Afghanistan in July 2011, the deadline for beginning the withdrawal of US forces.

His remarks come after a deadly summer for US troops in Afghanistan, with casualties at their highest rates since the invasion in 2001. The US is in the middle of an attempt to turn around the war, as it did in Iraq, with a troop increase. President Obama ordered an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan last fall, for a total of 100,000, and the number of foreign troops in the country is scheduled to peak in the coming weeks.

Petraeus made the remarks in an interview with the BBC that was broadcast on Monday. He said NATO forces had reversed the momentum the Taliban gained in the past several years in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, as well as near Kabul. He said NATO forces will regain momentum in other areas as well, but that challenges remain.

“You not only have to reverse the momentum, you have to take away those sanctuaries and safe havens that the Taliban have been able to establish over the course of those years," he said, adding that "that’s going to entail tough fighting.”

[Demeter]

1. That's an Interesting Description of Free-Fall!

[dkf]

2. If we truly believed in religious freedom why is it our business whether the Taliban

Is there or not? Al Qaeda is pretty much gone. Isn't this more or a test regarding acceptability of Islam than a Mosque?